The Question of Knowledge in Evidence-Based Design for Healthcare Facilities: Limitations and Suggestions

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original published version can be found at http://her.sagepub.com/content/6/4/101.abstract.OBJECTIVE: To help designers and researchers and other proponents of evidence-based design (EBD) overcome limitations concerning knowledge categorization and acquisition of evidence-based design (EBD). BACKGROUND: The evidence-based design (EBD) approach for healthcare facilities has been widely embraced by both designers and researchers in recent years; however, there are some limitations concerning knowledge categorization and acquisition of EBD. These limitations include an overemphasis on empirical knowledge gained by experimental research, a narrow focus that excludes design knowledge generated outside healthcare and allied fields, and a lack of interest in empirical knowledge gained by qualitative studies. In order to overcome these limitations, the proponents of EBD must acknowledge that design knowledge relevant to healthcare design can be found in disciplines unrelated to healthcare; that design knowledge does not always need empirical validation; and that design knowledge of the semantic kind can be more easily accessed and understood through qualitative studies. CONCLUSIONS: To reassess the foundations of knowledge of EBD with moderated skepticism is necessary because there are philosophical and analytical problems yet to be overcome in delivering on the promises of EBD. To question and reassess the foundations of knowledge base of EBD is not necessarily to deny its value, but rather to stimulate a judicious and balanced appraisal of its limitations so that, in future, we are able to take necessary steps to overcome these limitations

Affordance-Based Design of Physical Interfaces for Ubiquitous Environments

Physical interfaces have been proposed as a way to realize natural interactions with ubiquitous computing environments. The successful design of such interfaces requires design approaches that integrate aspects of our world which are usually treated separately in traditional system development approaches. This paper describes a design approach based on Gibson concept of affordance. We demonstrate an experimental method for studying object affordance and show how it can be applied to the design of a concrete physical interface artefact

Playful E-textile Sonic Interaction for Socially Engaged and Open-Ended Play Between Autistic Children

Research on the potential benefits of technology for autistic children is an emergent field in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), especially within the Child-Computer Interaction Community. This thesis contributes a design approach grounded in theories of play, cognitive development, and autism to expand the discourse on methodological guidelines for performing empirical studies with non-verbal autistic children and to extend the design space to cater to the socio-emotional and sensory needs of this population. The thesis reveals how sonic e-textile Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can be used effectively to mediate children’s social participation in playful activities. This is demonstrated through developing three explorative field-studies conducted at a specialist school based in North-East London where two sonic e-textile playful TUIs, namely Mazi and Olly, have been created and tested with three groups of autistic children aged between 5-10. The three studies ran over the period of three years and were designed to investigate the potentials of TUIs as shareable toys during leisure and recreational activities to a) support social and playful interactions among peers and b) provide opportunities for self-regulation. The key contributions of this thesis are the designs of two tangible user interfaces, which offer a set of design approaches to guide researchers through creating shareable and playful tangibles for non-verbal autistic children; a framework for analysis and a thorough evaluation process that other researchers could use to assess the efficacy of playful TUI designs for nonverbal autistic children; and an in-depth discussion about the research process, which offers a new perspective about holistic designs and evaluation of technologies that aim to scaffold play in groups non-verbal autistic children

Affordance-based Design of Physical Interfaces for Ubiquitous Environments

Abstract. Physical interfaces have been proposed as a way to realize natural interactions with ubiquitous computing environments. The successful design of such interfaces requires design approaches that integrate aspects of our world which are usually treated separately in traditional system development approaches. This paper describes a design approach based on Gibson concept of affordance. We demonstrate an experimental method for studying object affordance and show how it can be applied to the design of a concrete physical interface artefact.